Redeem the Time

Our error's cause and cure are seen: see next
Time's nature, origin, importance, speed;
And thy great gain from urging his career. --
All-sensual man, because untouch'd, unseen,
He looks on time as nothing. Nothing else
Is truly man's; 'tis fortune's. -- Time's a god.
Hast thou ne'er heard of Time's omnipotence?
For, or against, what wonders he can do!
And will: to stand blank neuter he disdains.
Not on those terms was time (heaven's stranger!) sent
On his important embassy to man.
Lorenzo! no: on the long-destin'd hour,
From everlasting ages growing ripe,
That memorable hour of wondrous birth,
When the dread sire, on emanation bent,
And big with nature, rising in his might,
Call'd forth creation (for then time was born)
By godhead streaming thro' a thousand worlds;
Not on those terms, from the great days of heaven
From eternity's mysterious orb,
Was time cut off, and cast beneath the skies;
The skies, which watch him in his new abode,
Measuring his motions by revolving spheres;
That horologe machinery divine.
Hours, days, and months, and years, his children play,
Like num'rous wings around him, as he flies
Or, rather, as unequal plumes, they shape
His ample pinions, swift as darted flame,
To gain his goal, to reach his ancient rest,
And join anew eternity his sire;
In his immutability to nest,
When worlds, that count his circles now, unhing'd,
(Fate the loud signal sounding) headlong rush
To timeless night and chaos, whence they rose.

-- Edward Young; The Complaint, Night II (1742)